Hindoo Holiday (7 page)

“Hookah!” remarked the King.

“I beg your pardon?” I said.

But his remark was not addressed to me. From the shadows behind the
charpai
, where, unnoticed by me, he had been squatting, a white-turbaned servant rose and left the chamber by the other door, returning in a few moments with a hookah pipe, ready lighted, which he set on the ground by the spittoon, laying the stem upon the table.

I looked at him with interest.

He was young and tall, with big bony hands and feet, but his face was strikingly handsome—fairer than usual and lighted by large glowing dark eyes, which every now and then rested curiously upon me.

He returned to the shadows, moving silently; and then I noticed that the King was watching me. He had uncurled, and his little thin legs were dangling over the edge of the
charpai
above the brazier.

“That is the barber's son I spoke of,” he said, removing the stem of the hookah from his mouth. “He is my personal servant—my valet. Do you like him?”

“Well, I've hardly seen him,” I said, “but he seemed very handsome indeed.”

He opened wide his eyes, as though surprised.

“I will show him to you,” he said, and with a slight movement of his hand he brought the magnificent boy out of the shadows again into the patch of light that filtered through the reed blind. He moved noiselessly into it and stood there facing me, motionless, expressionless, awaiting my inspection.

But I couldn't manage that—sitting there studying him as though he were a slave; so I hurriedly murmured my satisfaction, and another motion of the royal hand restored him to his shadows.

“Would you call him beautiful?” asked the King at once.

“Very beautiful,” I answered. “More beautiful than any of your Gods.”

“Oh—h!” The filmy eyes widened again. “More beautiful than Rama?”

“Yes, more beautiful than Rama.”

“Oh—h!”

For a few moments he bubbled into his hookah, then he laid the stem on the table beside him, clasped his hands round one updrawn knee, and turning his face towards me, asked:

“Would you call me an ugly man?”

This was a little disconcerting. Among the general descriptive words, “ugly” was certainly the most appropriate, and I do not think that any one would have contradicted it as misrepresentative; but I couldn't very well say so, and his face was certainly not repellent, nor even disagreeable.

“Certainly not, Maharajah Sahib.”

He received this without the least sign, so that I wondered whether he had been listening; then drawing his legs beneath him again, he called his servant and gave him some order which sent him out of the room.

“I will show you something,” he said, throwing me a veiled glance and popping a betel-leaf into his mouth. In a few moments the boy returned with a small package of papers bound with tape which he handed to the King, or, rather, dropped into the royal hand from a height so that there should be no physical contact between them. His Highness undid the bundle and extracted a letter which he returned, by the same method, to the valet, who brought it to me.

“Read it,” said the King, “and tell me what you think. Tell me frankly. Don't be beaten in the bush.”

It was a confidential letter from a British official to some friend of his, and the very last person by whom the writer would have wished it to be seen was the King—for he was its subject.

I do not remember very much about it. True, I read it through, and was aware of good criticism while I blushed for it; but I was thinking all the time of the letters that I myself had written home, and for the fate of which I was suddenly deeply concerned. Here, indeed, for all its merciless exposure, was impartial thought and strict, respectful treatment; the writer had not been betrayed, as I had been, into the easy ways of ridicule; there were no caricatures in the margin. I remembered those caricatures, which I had once thought so good, with considerably less appreciation; and I also remembered how I had imprudently dropped them into the State letter-box, or had even entrusted them to a half-witted Mohammedan boy to post for me.

So I do not remember very much about that letter; only one or two sentences recur to me.

“. . . He is a weak man, and a bad ruler, having no real interest in the affairs of the State . . . wasteful . . . generous to a fault . . . a loyal friend . . . he is a very ugly man.”

When I had finished reading it I looked up. He was not attending to me, but was gazing into the air; my movement disturbed him, however, and he turned his head.

“Have you finished?”

“Yes.”

Probably I was a little flustered, for I got up to restore it to him, but he restrained me.

“Put it on the table beside you. Now; what do you think of it?”

“I think it's a very good letter, and the writer seems to be friendly on the whole; but I don't agree with many of the things he says.”

“What don't you agree with?”

I'd been talking at random, but I reverted to the subject of ugliness, and then retired into the question of how he had got hold of it.

“It came to me by chance,” he said, without expression.

“And what do
you
think of it, Maharajah Sahib?”

“It is the truth,” he said, with finality. “I like it very much.” I began to say something else to him, but he cut me off.

“And now you should go,” he said. “Good night, Mr. Ackerley.”

I got up, feeling suddenly rather like a schoolboy.

“Good night, Maharajah Sahib,” I said, bowing to him, and went on, past the cow, to where my chariot was awaiting me in the moonlight to convey me back to the house on the hill.

This evening as I was returning to the Guest House, I met His Highness's “valet” coming from it. With him was the young man who has that fine tress of black hair I mentioned elsewhere, and who is connected in some official capacity with the Guest House, probably as a clerk or accountant. I have seen him about here a good deal, and have noticed him for his pleasant, clean and dignified appearance. He speaks a little English, always giving me a “Good morning,” no matter what time of the day.

Hindoo men wear a peculiar nether garment, called a
dhoti
. This is a very long single piece of cloth which they wind round their waists and between their legs. With the poorer people it shrinks to a coarse loincloth, twisted untidily about their middles; but it can be a very graceful garment indeed, when it is made of fine muslin and properly put on so that it drops in front almost to the ankles in two loops which loosely sheathe the legs.

The Dewan in my sketch (page 229) can be seen wearing one; but he has not put it on very well. To arrange it symmetrically, so that the loops fall equally to the most becoming length, requires a certain amount of care which a man like Babaji Rao, for instance, would not trouble to give; also, since it may have to be taken off, or at any rate disarranged for various reasons, a number of times a day, it must be difficult to have it always quite right. Our trousers are no bother; however often we put them off and on we never find one leg shorter than the other; but the
dhoti
requires attention and skill, and is seldom properly worn.

The young man with the tress of black hair looks particularly graceful in his. It is of the finest, softest muslin, with a narrow border of dark blue, and falls almost to the silver buckles of his black shoes. And as he moves, one catches glimpses behind of his slim brown calves and ankles.

His Highness has told his “valet” that I thought more beautiful than the Gods. This morning, after breakfast, the young clerk whom I saw with the valet yesterday followed me to the house and asked if he might come in. He told me at once that he knew I had seen the Gods dance.

“How do you know?” I asked.

“My friend,” he murmured, “he tell me . . . my friend you say ‘like Krishna.'”

“Better than Krishna,” I said. “So the Maharajah Sahib told him?”

“Yes,” he answered; then added, after a moment, “But do not say to Maharajah Sahib, or he will be angry with me.”

I promised.

“Do you like Europeans?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he is so wisdom.”

To the Hindoo all life is sacred. He may not kill, and he may not eat meat. If he does eat meat he is outcaste. Babaji Rao, the Secretary Sahib, is extremely orthodox, and the mere mention of meat discomposes him. No doubt this is one of the reasons why the Guest House accounts are in such confusion, and the monthly bill for supplies, which has to be met from the State funds, causes the Dewan much anxiety. The Secretary's signature is required as a check to the stores list; but he signs with averted eyes. He took me off in his tonga this morning to inspect the jail, but the old St. Peter—Munshi, as they call him—who keeps the keys of the storeroom, waylaid us near the Palace with indents for the Secretary to check. The inevitable crowd of small children and loafers at once collected.

“I do not understand these foods,” said the Secretary, gazing with disgust at the papers before him. . . . “Lungs? . . . Do you eat lungs?”

He repeated the Hindi word that stumped him to the bystanders; but no one had any idea to offer. I suggested kidneys as a possible alternative, and as such it was hastily set down.

“If,” said the Secretary Sahib uneasily as we continued on our way, “if my father knew that I had to discuss hens and eggs and kidneys in this way, he would be very cross with me.”

The jail is a long, low, distempered building on the outskirts of the town, with an armed guard over its triple iron gates, only one of which is allowed to be open at a time. There must have been some forty or fifty prisoners, all in leg-irons, squatting on their haunches in the sun in the various yards, spinning hemp and yarn with primitive machines, or plaiting rope. Others were weaving coarse sheets and towels, or sat cross-legged on benches in a shed making carpets. One man was sewing treasure-bags. All of them wore round their necks small discs on which their numbers and terms of imprisonment were engraved, and these the Secretary glanced at from time to time with something of the detachment with which one inspects the price tickets on articles in a shop. Many of them were in for a long term of years, he said; some for life; but the worst characters were grinding grain in a building near by—the hardest and most distasteful work of all.

I walked about among them, giving, as far as possible, equal attention to all, in case my visit was as important to them as are the visits of the Prince of Wales on tours of inspection in England, and lent a particular significance to this day otherwise indistinguishable from hundreds of others; and they all seemed pleased to show their skill in the particular work they were doing. But all were miserable, weedy creatures, and I did not feel any personal interest in any of them. The kitchen or cookhouse we also visited, and I tried to walk into it, but was prevented; one may not set foot in Hindoo kitchens—even in a prison—without first removing one's shoes. It was swarming with flies. Meal-cakes were in process of being made—things like very large crumpets which were turned out of the frying-pan into the hot ashes of the fire itself.

Apparently these and some other corn confection formed the staple diet. Still thinking of the Prince of Wales, I asked Babaji Rao whether I should send the prisoners something—some tobacco, for instance; but he said there was not the slightest need to feel pity, for they were far better off than the other peasants who were not in prison.

Some building is in progress here, a garage for the Guest House, and the workmen carry the water for mortar-mixing up the hill in large, round, earthenware pots, or
lutiya
, balanced on their heads. They also water the shrubbery in the drive, and sometimes the pots are brass. I see them through the open doorway of my bungalow, and am often struck by the gracefulness of their carriage as they pass to and fro with these heavy burdens on their heads. The right arm, bare, slim, brown, is raised so that the hand rests lightly against the lip of the jar to steady it, and their bodies glide with an erect and braced, yet easy flowing motion. Elegant they look, like figures in a frieze; and sometimes, coming up behind them as I mount the hill, and seeing their slow-swift, easy-tense movement, the slim dark arm upstretched, and the
dhoti
tucked up round the loins so that the slender legs are bare in their whole length, I think what grace! what beauty! and, looking round as I pass, see an ugly, coarse-featured, ill-nourished peasant with betel-stained lips.

I give them cigarettes, and one of them in particular, a strange gawky boy, often catches my eye. I am amused by the way in which he manages his clothes. He has four garments, besides a pair of broken-down shoes—a tight collarless cotton jacket with short sleeves, an abbreviated white
dhoti
, little more than a loincloth, a pale brown
sāfā
, or small turban, and a cornflower blue cloak (
pichōra
)—and the last three of these seem interchangeable, for sometimes, when perhaps his
dhoti
is being washed, his
sāfā
is wound round his loins, and his
pichōra
round his head. I noticed him gazing wistfully towards my house the other day, so I beckoned to him. He approached obliquely, like a crab, very sun-blackened and angular, his long thin legs bare to the thigh, his coarse blue cloth tumbled anyhow round his head. His face was floury with dust. I held out some cigarettes. He shuffled off his shoes and, after a momentary hesitation, entered timidly, his coarse hands cupped and stretched before him. I dropped the cigarettes into the cup. He retreated and, from the safety of the doorway, wrinkling up his eyes and disclosing hideous stumps of teeth in a grin, murmured “
Bakshish
.” I held out a rupee. Again the cup, more quickly this time, was advanced, and I dropped the rupee in. He bent very low upon this, and touched first my carpet and then his forehead with his right hand.